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Thursday, October 23, 2008

With the Voltage Running Through Her Skin

I wish I could make deals with my body. Like, okay, you can have a migraine for a day but you have to wait till next Tuesday, 'kay? Because having it jump up and bite me in the ass does no one any good. (And neither does that bitter-cold wind we're having too.)

So, yeah, hello high stress levels. Four nights down, eight more to go. I'm a one-third through this trip. Argh.

Griffin's out of school today and tomorrow for parent-teacher conferences.

I went to his this morning, his teacher loves him. He has outstanding grades. The only slightly-negative thing on his report card was from his art teacher. Apparently, he's not "doing" his art right - this isn't the first of this I've heard. Griffin doesn't like art class because his art teacher tell him he's doing it wrong. To which I always tell Griffin, "Work on your art, do not talk to others. Hold you scissors properly. Use the materials you teacher wants you to use - but ultimately you can't do art wrong." What a fucking dumbass.

i love the guidelines you gave him - too bad he'll get conflicting words from his art 'teacher'. as an art teacher i can tell you that that 'teacher' is probably not trained in art education. because if she was, she wouldn't say STUPID Things like that! don't get me started.

I too am an art teacher. I would never tell a kid he was doing the art "wrong". That doesn't mean my kids get free reign and get to create 3-d sculptures when we're working on mosaics, but as far as compisition and color choices--the kids get to pick. It is often the classroom teacher who, untrianed in art, will oft enforce rules like"color those apples red", etc.We did pumpkins today and more than one teacher was irritated that i told the kids if they wanted a blue pumpkin, they could go for it. The kids are often in total disbelief that that sort of thing would be ok....

ooh, i just remembered something good. when i was student teaching 2nd graders, my supervising teacher used to 'spruce up' or 'fix' students' work before she hung it in the hall! seriously, she'd be coloring on their work, etc. i was outraged. if that would have been my work she messed with, my 7yo feelings would have been so very hurt. luckily, i saved some of them before she could get to them.can you believe it?!

Yeah..."organized art" classes are totally like that. I had a teacher that sat me down and gave me a "good talking to" about something I was working on, and when I completed it the next day (wherein I didn't change a thing I was doing) she was all excited because she was loving the way it turned out and said, "oh...see? I'm glad we had that talk" um...yeah.